Mariela stepped back and started the music again. “Let’s try it again.”
• • •
LENNOX STOOD TO the side of the open door, watching as Marie worked with the young couple. He’d received his share of questioning looks when he’d told colleagues he was hiring a dance instructor for the academy. But he’d known back then it was an excellent idea and anyone who had doubted the advantages would surely be a believer after watching Marie interact with the students.
He waited while Marie finished with them. They left moments later, walking past him with a “Good afternoon, Sir,” and looking far more relaxed together than they had when he’d seen them the day before.
Then he stepped into Marie’s office, which was much larger than anyone else’s because he’d insisted she have a barre and a small dance space. He remembered her look of surprise the day he’d shown it to her and how it struck him then how much he enjoyed doing it for her.
“Master MacLure,” Marie said. “I didn’t expect you to come by.”
He nodded toward the door. “I wanted to get your thoughts on Dana and Brian.”
She thought about her answer, pushing the hair that had fallen in her face out of her way. “They’re not there yet, but they’ll get there. It’ll just take patience and a little bit of work. I think they made good progress today, but I’d like to get Master Matthews’s opinion the next time he works with them.”
“I’ll see to it that he follows up with you.” He turned to walk out, stopped, and looked back at her. “Excellent work today, by the way. I know I don’t say it enough, but the academy wouldn’t be as successful as it is without you.”
Marie’s jaw dropped for a split second, but she recovered quickly, though her cheeks flushed the slightest hue of pink. “Thank you, Sir.”
He smiled and winked. As he walked away, he tried to put his finger on what exactly it was that happened to make him feel so . . . buoyant, for lack of a better word.
Thinking back, he believed it had to do with what Marie said about a Dom. How their entire attention was focused on the submissive. It wasn’t anything new, or something he hadn’t heard two thousand times. In fact, he’d often said it himself.
No, it was that a part of him realized what he’d been missing. Someone to protect. He’d thought he could channel his Dominant side into the academy and that would be enough, but it wasn’t. He needed that personal connection. That intimacy with another person.
And as much as he could try to deny it, he highly doubted he could ignore that need for much longer.
• • •
WINNIE WAS WAITING for him when he made it to the cabin, but not the way he’d told her to be waiting. He’d left specific instructions. E-mailed them. And he had the confirmation that she’d read them.
It wasn’t that he was surprised she wasn’t naked and kneeling in her art studio. Rather, he was disappointed. For the last six months he’d been waiting for the other shoe to drop. It appeared today was the day.
“Is there a problem?” he asked her.
She had a tiny drop of black paint on her right cheekbone. She’d probably been painting all day. More of those dark and depressing landscapes if he had to guess. All her work had been so dismal lately. He remembered when her paintings reflected her joy.
There was no joy in her work now. He’d asked her recently why that was and what happened to the joy. She’d shrugged and said she couldn’t paint what she didn’t feel. Then she’d sighed heavily and said of course he wouldn’t understand, since he wasn’t an artist.
Frankly, if being an artist meant sitting in a dark room all day painting depressing pictures, he was glad he wasn’t one. Of course, he kept that to himself because being an artist also apparently meant you had fragile emotions and the tiniest thing could crush your creative spirit, leaving you in a funk for days.
“I got your e-mail,” she said, answering his earlier question.
“Then I would have thought to have you waiting for me in a different manner.”
“God, Lennox.” She rolled her eyes. “Does it always have to be about the kink with you?”
That hurt more than he let her know. “No, but it hasn’t been about the kink for a long time.”
“I just don’t have time for that right now.”
“You don’t have to have time,” he said. “Not if it’s a part of who you are.”
Lennox jerked awake. It seemed his subconscious didn’t want to relive that day any more than he did. He rolled over to check the time. Four thirty. He groaned, knowing he wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep.
He stayed in bed for a few minutes, but eventually got up and stepped outside onto his balcony. It was one of the few luxuries he allowed himself. After Winnie’s death, he’d so often felt fenced in. He viewed adding the balcony to his apartment in the BDSM academy he was building as a necessity.
The fall session had been going on for two weeks and the September air held a chill of the coming winter. He turned to go back inside and put a shirt on, when a movement on the docks caught his attention. Who would be out this early in the morning?
Whoever it was at least had enough sense to carry a flashlight. The movements seemed familiar and he recoiled a bit when it realized it was Marie.
He couldn’t stop his feet from hurrying in her direction even if he’d wanted to. He stopped by his closet long enough to pull on a sweater and a pair of jeans and then he was out the door, headed to the docks. Numerous questions ran through his mind as he made his way across the lawn.
Did Marie suffer from insomnia? Did she walk the docks a lot this early in the morning?
Though he tried to tell himself he was only checking on her because he was her employer and he wanted to ensure she was okay, he knew better. Marie was a beacon of light in his otherwise dark and dour world and he needed that light like plants needed the sun.
And just like the sun, he could bask in her light, but he could not allow himself to get too close or she’d burn him alive.
He’d finally apologized to her, but things remained tense between them. He missed how easy things used to be with her and wondered if they’d ever be like that again.
By the time he made it to the dock, she’d settled into one of the few chairs that were positioned along the water. Her head jerked up at the sound of his approach, but it was too dark and he was too far away to see her reaction to his arrival.
“I couldn’t sleep either,” he said by way of introduction. “I saw you out here and thought you might like some company.”
She turned her head toward him and the ocean breeze ruffled her hair. She brushed it out of her eyes before answering. “I don’t mind,” she said. “But I would have enjoyed your company more if you’d brought coffee.”
“Right. Coffee. I knew I was forgetting something.”
Now that he was by the sea there was a breeze, and he had to admit, coffee would have been a really good idea. But he didn’t want to go back inside to get some for fear she’d leave in his absence.
“Do you come down here often?” he asked. “I mean this early?”
She shook her head. “Only when I have trouble sleeping and, fortunately, that’s only a few times a month. Usually I either walk down here or dance.”
“You didn’t want to dance?”
She didn’t reply, and the silence became a bit uncomfortable. He tried to figure out what about his question could have upset her, but he had no clue. Should he apologize?
“I can’t danc
e,” she said before he could decide.
“What?”
“I haven’t been able to dance lately. It started a few weeks ago, not long before classes started. I thought it was just a thing and I’d get over it in a day. Then I thought maybe a day or two. But now, it’s been so long . . .” She looked away from him and toward the ocean. “Sometimes I fear I’ll never dance again.”
Marie not dancing didn’t make sense. He didn’t think she could be alive and not dance, it was so much a part of her. “But the classes?”
She waved her hand. “That’s different. That’s work. I can do work. What I can’t do is dance for me. Alone.”
“Has this ever happened before?”
He knew her answer as soon as the question left his mouth. He knew, too, that she didn’t want to say.